B'ville: BTG Review - High expectations

The glue that holds the whole show together, however, is Jan Weston's adorable Edith.

Weston turns in a multi-layered characterization of a seemingly simple, always accommodating house-frau that somehow manages to get her way whenever she wants it. And in Act 2, Edith even experiments with some serious self-reliance. No matter where she's headed, Weston makes Edith believable and appealing, credible and cute.

Now that she's pregnant and prone to fainting spells, Edith quits doing housework and starts embarking on shopping sprees for clothes and cha-cha records. She hires a contractor to tear up the second floor to put in a nursery. His wife's sudden transformation has left Harry even more out of sorts than usual, and he often mocks her high-pitched entreaties, an insult she dutifully ignores.

"It's as if a whole new world has opened up to me," Edith gushes. "I was happy in the old world," Harry grumbles.

Drunk scene

Complications ensue, including Charlie being run ragged by his conception-obsessed wife while Edith is being urged by her friend, Grace, to make her own decisions.

After both Kate and Edith squabble with their hubbies over the phone, Harry and Charlie spend the evening at a bar getting plastered. As they drive home an off-stage car crash signals their return and wakes their next-door neighbor, the mayor. The subsequent drunken interlude and Edith's sudden disappearance comprise most of Act 2.

As cooking sherry pickles their characters, Wright and Taylor plumb the depths of slapstick, with the younger, nimbler Taylor taking most of the punishment. Before this show's run concludes, Taylor will be bruised from head to toe as he endures no less than four floor denting pratfalls plus a head-butting encounter with a drop-leaf table-top. Taylor's pain is the audience's pleasure, though, as his every move elicits laughter.